Socha is a town and municipality in the Colombian Department of Boyacá, part of the Valderrama Province, which is a subregion of Boyacá. It borders Socotá in the east,

Sativasur Sativasur is a town and municipality in the Colombian Department of Boyacá, part of the subregion of the Northern Boyacá Province. It is approximately 132 km from Tunja, the capital of the department. Sativasur borders the municipalities S ...

in the north,

Tasco Tasco (also known as Tasco Worldwide) sells consumer telescopes. Tasco mainly imports telescopes for amateur astronomers but has expanded into other optical products, such as spotting scopes, microscopes, binoculars, telescopic sights, and othe ...

in the south and in the west Paz de Río.

Geography

The village is located in the

Eastern Ranges The Eastern Ranges is an Australian rules football team in the NAB League, the Victorian statewide under-18s competition. The club is a founding member of the competition (1992) and has produced several players for the Australian Football Le ...

at altitudes between and .Official website Socha
– accessed 06-05-2016 Socha is the largest municipality in the

Natural National Park Páramo de Pisba Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...

. The

Chicamocha River Chicamocha River is a river of Boyacá and Santander in central-eastern Colombia. It is part of the Magdalena river system that flows into the Caribbean Sea. Chicamocha River originates in the municipality of Tuta in the department of Boya ...

forms the northern boundary of Socha.

History

Before the

Spanish conquest of the Muisca The Spanish conquest of the Muisca took place from 1537 to 1540. The Muisca were the inhabitants of the central Andean highlands of Colombia before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors. They were organised in a loose confederation of diff ...

on the

Altiplano Cundiboyacense The Altiplano Cundiboyacense () is a high plateau located in the Eastern Cordillera of the Colombian Andes covering parts of the departments of Cundinamarca and Boyacá. The altiplano corresponds to the ancient territory of the Muisca. The Alt ...

, Socha was inhabited by the indigenous Pirgua and Boche tribes, belonging to the

Muisca The Muisca (also called Chibcha) are an indigenous people and culture of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, Colombia, that formed the Muisca Confederation before the Spanish conquest. The people spoke Muysccubun, a language of the Chibchan l ...

Simón Bolívar Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios (24 July 1783 – 17 December 1830) was a Venezuelan military and political leader who led what are currently the countries of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Panama and ...

passed through Socha in his march for the independence of Colombia. The town center was moved in 1870 due to a landslide. Close to the Boche waterfall in the municipality

petroglyph A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions ...

s have been found. The name Socha is derived from the

Chibcha The Muisca (also called Chibcha) are an indigenous people and culture of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, Colombia, that formed the Muisca Confederation before the Spanish conquest. The people spoke Muysccubun, a language of the Chibchan lang ...

words ''So'' ("Sun";

Sué Sué, Xué, Sua, Zuhe or Suhé was the god of the Sun in the religion of the Muisca. He was married to Moon goddess Chía.Ocampo López, 2013, Ch.4, p.33 The Muisca and their confederation were one of the four advanced civilizations of the Ameri ...

) and ''Cha'' ("Moon"; Chía), "Land of the Sun and the Moon".Etymology Socha
– accessed 06-05-2016

Economy

Main economical activity of Socha is

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as stratum, rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen ...

and

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic ...

. To a lesser extent also

livestock Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to anima ...

farming and

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled peop ...

are executed.

Born in Socha

* Fernando Soto Aparicio, Colombian poet

References

{{coord, 6, 00, N, 72, 40, W, display=title, region:CO_type:adm2nd_source:GNS-enwiki Municipalities of Boyacá Department 1540 establishments in the Spanish Empire